heat

We've reached the time of year where it is regularly getting close to freezing every night. The daytime weather is often still quite nice (it's supposed to be almost 60 on Thanksgiving this year) but we've turned the central heating on. I don't really like central heat; I don't like the constant noise from the blowing air, I don't like the way it dries out my skin and I don't think it's very efficient. The uninsulated heat ducts run through the unheated and uninsulated basement area (plus an shoddily insulated duct runs outside to reach the sunroom) and there is undoubtedly a lot of heat loss there.

Last winter we conducted an "experiment" where out of a combination of attempted energy conservation and cheap-assedness we kept the heat turned down as low as we could stand. This turned out to be right around 59 degrees F during waking hours, and turned down to high 40s at night. Daytime was more unpleasant than night; while at home I typically wore sweatpants with multiple blankets draped around me at all times and I seriously considered getting some of those fingerless gloves.

We won't be repeating the experiment again this year for a couple of reasons. One, while energy conservation is a noble idea, it's not worth suffering for. Even with blanket layers, I was still cold pretty much all the time. It kind of surprised me, because the thought of temperatures around 60 degrees conjures up images of springtime and warm weather. In elementary school, a 60 degree day in April would definitely have been warm enough to wear shorts. But for some reason it's not warm enough for long term wintertime comfort. The other reason we won't be doing it again is that we don't have a programmable thermostat. It was a bitch to wake up to those 46 degree mornings and get out of the (warm, cozy duvet covered) bed before the apartment heated up.

I think the ideal heating system would be radiant underfloor heating with a couple portable electric mini-heaters. Having warm floors all the time would be so nice, and it's silent, efficient and shouldn't do too much in the way of causing dry air. The only downside is that it takes a while to get warmed up, but much of that could be taken care of with a programmable thermostat and the mini-heaters would fill the gap. They could be moved around to warm whichever room(s) one was currently using.

Radiators would probably be the second best option, although they are less optimal because of the way the corner of the room where the radiator is located tends to get too warm, while the other end of the room remains chilly (same goes for electric baseboard heaters).

I thought about this a lot during last year's cold winter.

notes

D. is out of town for a conference and last night I took myself out to dinner(delicious!) at noodles. As I was sitting at my table, waiting for my food, the elderly couple next to me got up to leave. The man asked me if my husband wasn't there yet, and I told him the husband in question is on a business trip, it's just me for dinner. He said ah, a business trip. I used to have to do that when I was younger. We lived in Wisconsin.

At this point his wife started hustling him away. "He has Alzheimer's", she whispered to me. I didn't get a chance to respond to either of them because my food was arriving, and by the time the waitress gave me everything they were gone. His questions/responses didn't really seem weird, and it saddened me that she seemed embarrassed that he was talking to me.

Almost every time I think about Alzheimer's disease I think about the book The Notebook, which I read sometime in high school. Yes, I know they made a movie, no, I haven't seen it, thanks for asking. I have no idea how I mistakenly read this book, because it's the kind of thing I wouldn't normally touch in a million years. It's basically a sappy love story, only at the end after the wife develops Alzheimer's, her husband uses "the notebook" to read to her (over and over) their love story that she no longer remembers. Oh, it's tragic. I cried.

I don't know where I'm going with this.

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The first fully Christmas light-ified house has appeared. I can't believe some people don't at least wait until after Thanksgiving. I mean come on, that gives you over a month of sparkly house decor, isn't that enough?

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D. and I like to play a game called 'daughter or girlfriend'. It involves guessing whether inappropriately young women with middle aged guys are, you guessed it, the daughter or the trophy girlfriend/wife. Yesterday at the mall I saw a 40-something asian guy with a white girl who appeared to be in her teens. At first I thought she was a REALLY inappropriate girlfriend but then i thought hey, perhaps she's adopted. Why not?